


not of many words

by ladymedraut



Category: Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare, SHAKESPEARE William - Works
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-22 14:59:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14311218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymedraut/pseuds/ladymedraut
Summary: It had taken Don John a long time to realize that someone could love her. Her mother certainly hadn’t loved her, and neither had her father. Her half-brother, Don Pedro, might pity her, but she had no illusions about his true feelings.(Or, how Don John met Conrade. Set several years before the events of Much Ado About Nothing.)





	not of many words

**Author's Note:**

> This has been lurking in a draft folder on my laptop for years, figured I might as well do something with it finally... Technically set in the universe as "Just a Shot Away" and "The Calm After the Storm" if you squint.

It had taken Don John a long time to realize that someone could love her. Her mother certainly hadn’t loved her, and neither had her father. Her half-brother, Don Pedro, might pity her, but she had no illusions about his true feelings. John was the king’s bastard daughter, and that made her unlovable. Someone had courted her once, in her youth, but he had broken it off the moment he learned of her parentage.

 _You’re a bastard,_ he had spat through the lips he used to kiss her with. _No one can love a bastard._

His words were still there, carved deep into her heart, and John could not find a way to erase them. Instead she had taken them as her own and fashioned them into a shield between her and the rest of the world. So they thought bastards were unlovable? Let them. John had never wanted their love anyways. She had never wanted delicate gowns, or embroidery lessons, or a fancy wedding, or a man controlling every aspect of her waking life. John had escaped that fate by being born to the wrong woman. No one cared what the bastard did.

And so the bastard had taught herself how to ride, how to fight, how to command an army. She was a woman in a man’s world, but if she was a bastard, was she really a woman in the same sense as the rest of them? John didn’t know and didn’t care, as long as no one tried to make her change who she had made herself.

At one point in time, Pedro had wanted her to be more ladylike. He had thought that the sight of her riding astride and unaccompanied through the countryside brought shame to the family regardless of her birth. And so he had given her a lady-in-waiting, thinking that a servant would help to keep her in line.

 _Will you ride with me, Conrade?_ John had asked on their first afternoon together.

 _To the death, m’lady,_ Conrade had replied quietly, and she had traded her smock for a shirt and trousers and ridden at John’s side.

 _Will you follow me, Conrade?_ John had asked, setting out into the forest when she could stand the city no longer. 

 _To the death, m’lady,_ Conrade would answer, walking close behind her.

 _Will you fight with me?_ John had asked once, passing Conrade an épée.

 _To the d—_ Conrade had caught herself mid-sentence and looked up to John with a faint smile on her face as she took the offered weapon. 

John kept waiting for the day when Conrade would leave her. She was just a servant appointed by Don Pedro. She had no reason to be loyal to John the Bastard. And so John never let herself smile back when Conrade turned her shy grin in her direction. She took Conrade under her wing and taught her to ride and read and fight, she took her on adventures to the sleazy taverns Borachio had once introduced her to and drank far too much. But she never took Conrade into her confidence.

That was what her half-brother wanted, she was sure of it. He was waiting for John to finally let down her guard and allow herself to grow attached to Conrade, and then he would stop paying her and Conrade would leave.

“Milady, can I ask you a question?” Conrade asked quietly one night as she helped John into her nightgown. John normally refused all help dressing and undressing herself, but she had sprained her wrist sparring with Borachio and could barely move it without waves of pain shooting up her arm.

“I suppose you have earned a question for putting up with me today,” John gritted out, wincing as the fabric pulled at her injured wrist.

“Why do they call you John? I’ve never met another woman named John.”

“My mother wanted a son. I suppose she thought the prince would love her better if she gave him a son. She thought he might legitimize a son, or at least give him a place in his court. A bastard daughter, though…” John chuckled drily. “What use would the prince have for a bastard daughter? My mother would be left with a mewling child she couldn’t afford to raise. And so when she gave birth to a girl, she named her John and sent the prince a letter saying that she had given birth to his child, and she had named that child John. The prince offered to raise the child, thinking it was a boy, and my mother dropped me off on the palace steps with a note that said _This is your John._ I suppose my father was a good man, since he didn’t toss me out when he found out I was a girl. But he kept the name.”

“Your mother was a clever woman, milady.”

“I suppose that’s one word you could use,” John retorted, shrugging off Conrade’s hand and immediately wishing she hadn’t when her arm twinged. She hadn’t meant to reveal so much to Conrade. She had never told anyone so much about herself. But Conrade was so easy to talk to sometimes… “You know, you can call me John,” she said on a whim. “I’m not much of a lady.”

Conrade smiled her small little grin. “You’ll always be a lady to me. To the death, milady.”

“You always say that, Conrade. It gets a little disconcerting.” But it was also strangely endearing. There was a part of John, buried so long ago she had thought it no longer existed, that desperately wished it could be true. It couldn’t be true though. No one was loyal to a bastard daughter.

“I’m sorry, milady—John. I’ll stop—”

“No. No, don’t change yourself for me.” Something fluttered in John’s stomach when Conrade said her name. No, this wasn’t going to happen. It would only end poorly. “You’re dismissed,” she snapped. “Good night, Conrade.”

Conrade curtsied and scurried out of the room, her face a mask.

“Good night, John.”

* * *

 

“How is your wrist, milady?” Conrade asked when she returned the next morning with John’s breakfast. John avoided dining with her half-brother whenever she could help it, and breakfast was usually the most excusable meal.

“Still hurts,” she grunted, refusing to look Conrade in the eye as she placed the platter of eggs and sausages on the table.

“I’m sorry if I said anything I shouldn’t have last night.”

“It’s fine. Forget about it.” If Conrade forgot about it, then John could forget about it. And the faster she could forget what she thought had started to happen last night, the better. “Have you eaten yet?”

“No, milady. I’ll get something when I bring your tray back.”

“You’ll get cold scraps. Eat with me.” John knew that this was a bad idea. It was even worse, it was a horrible idea. But she invited Conrade to sit across from her anyways and shoved the plate between them, unable to tear her eyes away as the servant bolted down the rest of John’s toast. “They don’t feed you nearly enough, do they?” she said wryly, shoving down memories of her own childhood.

Conrade glanced up, suddenly aware that she had eaten half of John’s breakfast, and blushed as she pushed the plate back towards John. “I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t be. I want someone to spar with later and I can’t have you fainting from hunger. I don’t want to hurt you.” Shit. She hadn’t meant for that last sentence to slip out. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Conrade to know that she cared about her safety, it was just… Conrade couldn’t know that she _cared_. No one could know.

“I think I love you,” Conrade blurted out.

John stood there for a moment, frozen in fear. Conrade loved her. And she loved Con—no. No, bastards could not be loved, and they could not love in return. This was all just a cruel joke that Pedro was playing on her, it had to be. But then she made the mistake of turning in Conrade’s direction. No one could fake the look in the other woman’s eyes.

And so John did the only thing she could.

She ran.

Down the stairs, across the courtyard, she flew into the stables and flung herself onto her stallion, heedless of bridle or saddle. John clapped her heels against the horse’s flanks and he sprang out of his stall, clattering through the gates and past the stunned guards. She rode until the castle was a dim spot on the horizon and Acero was covered in sweat and breathing far too heavily.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered in his ear as they finally slowed to a walk in the middle of an unfamiliar village. Night was falling, and there was no chance that the stallion could take her back to Aragon. She would have to find somewhere to sleep. She wasn’t opposed to sleeping on the ground, but the horse deserved a comfortable stall and a good meal to help him recover.

And so John told Acero to stay, stumbled into the inn, and gave the innkeeper a small pile of coins for a room, a stall, and no questions. Once Acero was settled in the stable, John bought herself a large tankard of ale and settled herself in the darkest corner she could find. These people didn’t know who she was. They didn’t know that she was John the Bastard, and they never would. But she would always know. She couldn’t escape it.

She could escape Aragon though. She could find a saddle and bridle for her stallion and just keep riding. She could leave Conrade and her confessions of love. She could make her way to Milan. Her cousin the duke would welcome her there…

“You’re sitting at my table.”

John’s hand immediately went for the dagger at her side, but the tall man standing across the table from her did not seem particularly aggressive. She dropped her gaze and made to leave when his soft chuckle froze her in her place.

“That doesn’t mean you have to go. The table’s big enough for two.”

“I’m not interested,” she spat, turning her back on the man.

“Not even in your old Borachio?” the man called after her. “Have you forgotten me already, John?”

Borachio. The cellar-keeper’s son. Her childhood playmate. The only person she had ever called friend.

“Borachio is dead,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice but still refusing to turn around again and see what could not be. “He drowned.” Pedro had said it was an accident. Pedro had always been a terrible liar.

“You are Don John of Aragon, half-sister to Don Pedro of Aragon and cousin to Antonio di Milano. We used to play in the cellars together. I taught you how to throw a punch and it was the worst mistake I ever made in my life. You nearly broke my jaw.” There was laughter in his voice, a low chuckle that almost sounded familiar, but…

“Anyone could know that.” It couldn’t be Borachio. Borachio was long dead and gone.

And then the man was in front of her, and he had Borachio’s dark eyes and Borachio’s scruffy hair and Borachio’s smirk and—

“You have a birthmark on the back of your left leg in the shape of Sicily. I used to see it all the time when we went swimming in the Ebro. You have a scar on your back from where Pedro hit you with his sword when he found us on the shore together once with a picnic he claimed we had stolen from the cellars. You challenged him to a duel, but he just laughed and walked away. You were so furious.”

“Borachio,” she whispered, reaching out tentatively to touch his face, half afraid that her hand would pass straight through his stubbly cheek. “You’re alive.”

Borachio grinned as he flung his arms around her. Ten years she had thought he was dead, and yet here he was, washed up in the same dingy country tavern she was. John’s elation immediately turned to suspicion. She didn’t have this kind of luck.

“What are you doing here?” Borachio asked as they sat down across the table from each other. “Did Pedro finally exile you or did you finally run away?”

“I ran away,” John muttered into her tankard.

“Good for you.”

“No, not good. I ran away because someone said she loved me and I think I love her and— and— Dammit, Borachio, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, I’m so confused and—”

"Scared. You’re scared, aren’t you?” Borachio said softly. “You’ve never been in love before, have you?”

“Once, a long time ago, I thought I was, but I don’t know anymore. I’m not supposed to be lovable, I’m not supposed—”

“John. Go back to Aragon.” Borachio pried the empty tankard out of her numb fingers.

“But—”

“Go. Dammit, John, go before I drag you back there myself.” If he had been anyone else, John would have fought him for that comment. But he was Borachio, her oldest—her only—friend, and so she merely bowed her head and slumped over the table.        

* * *

 

John rode back to Aragon much more slowly. The sun was setting and the guards were about to close the gates for the night when she slipped through without a word.

Conrade was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t in John’s chambers, she wasn’t in the servants’ quarters, she wasn’t in the kitchen… John’s heart plummeted. She had been right all along. This was just one of Pedro’s machinations to get her out of Aragon. Her half-brother had known that she would run, but he hadn’t thought she would come back, and he had paid Conrade and she had gone on her way…

How could she have been so blind? She was a bastard. Unlovable.

She turned back towards the stables, ready to take Acero and leave again before Pedro noticed she had returned, when a familiar voice stopped her in her tracks.

“John!”

John turned, slowly, and there was Conrade, frozen halfway across the courtyard.

“I’m sorry, milady, I shouldn't have—”

“Did you mean it?” John asked, standing still even though every instinct was screaming for her to run.

Conrade held her gaze. It took John a moment to realize that Conrade was the only person other than Borachio she could remember who had ever looked her in the eye.

“Of course I meant it. But I understand if you don’t feel the same way, it’s okay, I just wanted you to know, you seemed so lonely—please don’t go galloping off again.”

John found herself at a loss for words. She couldn’t quite believe that Conrade’s feelings were genuine, but what else could they be? Conrade loved her. Honestly. Truly. Not because someone had told her to feign affection.

“Will you come inside?” The servant and the bastard stared at each other across the courtyard. “Please, John?”

* * *

 

Conrade and John were sitting on John’s bed later that evening, Conrade plaiting John’s hair into a long black braid.

“Why do you love me?” John finally asked.

“Because you treat me like myself. You take me riding and running and teach me to fight. You don’t make me wear long skirts and stuffy corsets for the sake of appearance. You don’t scheme to marry me off to someone else. You’re a good person, John. Why can’t you see that?”

“I’m a bastard,” John retorted. “I’m not supposed to be good. I’m not supposed to be loved.”

Conrade sighed, a sound that John had the feeling she should get used to hearing a lot. “Forgive me for saying this, but you are an idiot, milady.”

“To the death,” she agreed, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth for the first time she could remember.

“That’s my line.”

“Shut up, Conrade.”

“Make me.”

John spun around and kissed Conrade full on the lips. She didn’t think, she just moved, twining Conrade’s hair around her fingers and pulling them together until there was no space left between them. And Conrade sank into her embrace and kissed her back, and for a brief moment John forgot who she was. She forgot that she was a bastard and an outcast and the prince’s half-sister. She was just John, and Conrade loved her, and she loved Conrade.

Oh, she knew that this wasn’t going to end well. But God be damned, she was going to enjoy it while it lasted.


End file.
